Let Me Look At You is a one man show performed by 54-year-old comic and actor Mark Pinkosh, exploring the passing of an intergenerational torch from one generation of gay men to the next.
Playing at Chorlton’s The Edge Theatre on October 5-6, over 60 minutes Pinkosh will draw the audience into understanding the struggles for equality untaken by LGBT activists and encourage them to ask themselves what they can do to continue the fight.
Its timing, more than 50 years after the 1967 Sexual Offences Act which decriminalised homosexuality in the United Kingdom, is perfect.
Specifically, in Manchester at a period of urban regeneration which sees the architectural face of the iconic gay village, a symbol of the struggle for LGBT rights, irrevocably changing.
Pinkosh aims to make this a piece which audiences of all generations and sexual orientations can take something away from.
“We’re trying to reach everybody and say this is what it was like to be gay, this is what it’s like to be gay today. What’s the deal? How do you fit in if you’re gay or straight…how does this affect you?
“I want straight people to take away the same message as gay people…all of us are in the same boat…and maybe open up straight people’s eyes to stuff they may not have been aware that we went through.
“He (Godfrey, Pinkosh’s husband) made it universal so there’s something for every generation…as a 16-year-old, you can reflect and say ‘Oh I see that applies to me’, and then as a 70-year-old you can watch and say ‘Yep that applies to me too’.
“So it’s showing the common ground and the commonality between each generation.”
This Friday and Saturday: Let Me Look At You by @StarvArtTheatre
“… an intimate and engaging performer who has that knack of appearing to chat directly to you.”
-Paul Vale, The Stage pic.twitter.com/mfAoczC9Q4— The Edge (@TheEdgeMcr) October 2, 2018
The play draws on Pinkosh’s own experiences, as well as those of his 68-year-old collaborator and husband Godfrey Hamilton. It is their 22nd collaboration after they began writing in this format in 1993.
The play arrives in Manchester on its second outing as part of a five-month UK tour in locations from Hemel Hempstead to Glasgow. It previously had a four-week run in Edinburgh and played at the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival.
Tickets are available here: http://www.edgetheatre.co.uk/let-me-look-at-you/
Image courtesy of The Edge Theatre, with thanks.
